The Irish Brigade went into action at Gettysburg on 2nd July 1863. They did their fighting in the Wheatfield, one of the most infamous sections of the battlefield. The already depleted brigade suffered some 200 casualties. One of the brigade’s...
On 2nd May 1863, 150 years ago, hordes of Confederate troops appeared as if from nowhere and descended on the unsuspecting Yankees of the Eleventh Corps in the Virginia Wilderness. The blow Stonewall Jackson’s Rebels delivered to the Federal flank during the...
As part of the Irish-born Medal of Honor Project I have overhauled the Medal of Honor page to provide further information on the 146 Irish-born recipients from the Civil War I have thus far identified. A new introduction provides some background...
A little over a year ago friend Jim Swan, author of the excellent Chicago’s Irish Legion sent me on an image of a cigarette case he had come across. It commemorated a 50th anniversary dinner held in 1912 for the survivors...
The American Civil War killed hundreds of thousands of men, and devastated millions of lives. The industrialised battlefields of 1861-65 racked up casualty lists so huge that they become practically impossible to visualise- Fredericksburg 17,929; Shiloh 23,746; Gettysburg 51,000. The...
On 13th December 1862 the Irish Brigade had fought at Fredericksburg. Along with many other Union brigades they suffered horrendous casualties in the futile attempt to assault the Confederate positions at Marye’s Heights. The losses sent shockwaves through the Irish-American...
The 25th November 1890 was undoubtedly one of the proudest days in the life of ‘Paddy The Horse.’ That evening the man from the west of Ireland was a guest at an Irish Brigade reunion being held at the Riccadonna...
By September 1864 the Union forces at Petersburg had been facing their Confederate foe across a series of entrenchments and fortifications since mid-June. The Federals decided to commit to a strategy of continually extending their lines westward, seeking to exploit their...
Although some 170,000 Irishmen served during the American Civil War, it is extremely difficult to gain a picture of what service was like for them across a broad spectrum. This is a symptom of the fact that for the majority...
Brigadier-General Michael Corcoran’s Irish Legion spent their first Christmas in the field at Newport News, Virginia in 1862. While the Army of the Potomac licked its wounds further north after the catastrophe of Fredericksburg, Corcoran’s brigade- yet to be inured to the...